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In a small industrial unit in Bermondsey, south London, a modest table is laid for two. It’s covered with pickles, cheese, oatcakes, honey and butter, and a selection of cold cured meats. There’s no English word for the latter – they usually go by the Italian word salumi, or the French charcuterie – but everything on the table is British.

I first became aware that British charcuterie was on the march when I stumbled across Suffolk salami in a deli. I admired the pluck of anyone who was willing to take on Italy, France and Spain (never mind Germany and Poland) and make such things here. I couldn’t see it working, though. Now I am sitting with a Canadian, Adrienne Eiser Treeby, eating salami (your actual dried sausage, as opposed to the generic salumi): Plum Figgy, flavoured with Seville orange, dried figs, aniseed, Christmas spices and mead; and Lincoln Imp, dark red and rich with dried fruit and English beer, sage and lovage.

The spicing and sweet-savoury balance feel very British. But we don’t do this sort of charcuterie. We have cooked ham, pork pies and bacon; all the other stuff we get from abroad. Treeby assumed, before she arrived here, that British charcuterie existed. “In the States the breeds of pig we love are British: Tamworth, Gloucester Old Spot – you have the pork. When I found out you didn’t have charcuterie I thought maybe it had died out and needed reviving. But after research I realised that it just never developed.”

There is no tradition of charcuterie in this countryCredit:
No Unauthorized Use/Liz & Max Haarala Hamilton

Treeby started working at Neal’s Yard Dairy, a company that has done so much for British cheeses – helping to revive old ones, encouraging people to make new ones – that it was the perfect place for someone who wanted to champion British food. “I decided I would make the British charcuterie that could have existed,” she says. Two years ago she set up Crown & Queue.

Ed Smith, co-director of Cannon & Cannon, a small firm that sources and sells British charcuterie online, says the area is booming. “There are about 60 businesses already and I get calls from three new ones every month. People are making unusual stuff too, like venison salami and smoked mutton.”

One of the charcutiers Cannon & Cannon have helped is east London-based Blackhand Food. They make lick-the-plate ’nduja, a highly spiced soft sausage (gorgeously creamy, and subtler than the Calabrian original), and a top-notch pork and fennel salami. “When I was a chef I liked the dirty jobs,” says Blackhand’s Hugo Jeffreys, “I love the visceral experience of working with meat.” Now he gets to do it seven days a week, delivering to restaurants and delis on his bike and selling at markets at the weekend. His drying room is full of pancetta, culatello and salamis as thick as a wrestler’s arm.

At Cobble Lane Cured, two former British butchers and a Polish charcutier (who met while working at Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa) are making silky coppa, bresaola and a soft, peppery beef heart salami. They’re doing well, selling to Oliver’s restaurants and – an obvious place for British charcuterie – pubs. Their produce is as good as (some, in terms of moistness, fill-the-mouth fattiness and spot-on, imaginative seasoning, are better than) anything I’ve tasted from Europe.

But British charcuterie is expensive. “It will always be expensive. It’s the quality of the meat,” says Matt Hill, one of the partners. “You don’t know what goes into French or Italian salamis but British producers use British meat. We have the best meat in the world here and everything we use is traceable. Our rare-breed pigs are high in fat so they’re perfect for charcuterie, but it isn’t cheap.”

Some charcutiers make their own versions of Italian and French produce, others try to create stuff that is more “British”. In Adrienne’s view: “We can do both. And the charcuterie which is based on Italian or French models will eventually become 'ours’ because we use British meat and beer, and spices that have been imported here for centuries.”

Then she says something that makes British charcuterie look not just possible but obvious. “Tymsboro, one of the best, and award-winning, British cheeses, was based on the French cheese Valençay, but nobody thinks it’s imitating a French cheese. That is what will happen with charcuterie.”

I hope she’s right. It would be great to see British charcuterie in more of our pubs, even get a few French or Italians to long for salume made in Bermondsey. Perhaps that’s a dream too far. But the day after I visited Cobble Lane Cured I walked past a French café near where I live. A board outside said “English wine, British charcuterie”. I wanted to punch the air.

Where to buy British

Cannon & Cannon

Products from around 10 charcutiers are sold online, from Moons Green’s chilli-spiked pork 'beer sticks’ to a pre-sliced selection of salamis and air-dried beef from the south west. Charcuterie courses and tasting sessions take place at their HQ in Borough Market, London.cannonandcannon.com

Cannon and Cannon are set to take on Italy and France

Capreolus

Smoked mutton is a speciality at this Dorset-based company (expect to taste even the heather the sheep grazed on), as is their award-winning, truffle-infused lardo. Calabrian-inspired salami is a recent addition to the 20-strong product range.capreolusfinefoods.co.uk

Smoked mutton from Capreolus

Peelham Farm

A 650-acre organic farm in the Scottish Borders, where meat from their free-range livestock is air-dried in a 200-year-old stone byre. Start with the red-wine salami, a mild classic with a subtle hint of nutmeg.peelham.co.uk

Peelham Farm charcuterie

Forest Pig

80 pigs roam the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire, foraging for acorns and blackberry roots in the woodland. The resulting chorizos and salamis, as well as wild boar and game versions, are sold online and at farmers’ markets. Look out for a new venison salami this winter.forestpig.com